InterMedia Insights 8.1.2016

Hot Media Trends for August 1, 2016

Google is bringing its team of tech offerings to the 2016 Olympics this month in hopes of winning part of the online action. Just in time for the summer games, which officially begin on Friday, Google is sending 15 of its YouTube stars to livestream various parts of the games and other events across host city Rio de Janeiro. Among them will be YouTube stars Liza Koshy,Brodie Smith,Ben Brown, Caeli, Chloe Morello and Felipe Castanhari. Along with the Creators (as YouTube calls its content creators) the online giant is also deploying “Google Trekker” operators to capture 360-degree footage from inside Rio’s Olympic Park that will help those who can’t make it to Brazil get a street-view look via Google Maps at what it’s like on the ground. (Read More on ADWEEK)

Verizon announced that it has acquired Yahoo’s operating business for roughly $4.83 billion, which had long been expected ever since Yahoo put its core business up for sale. The deal, which is subject to usual regulatory and shareholder approvals, is expected to close early next year. “The acquisition of Yahoo will put Verizon in a highly competitive position as a top global mobile media company, and help accelerate our revenue stream in digital advertising.“ said Verizon chairman. The merger combines Yahoo’s audience, the web company said it counts 1 billion monthly active users, including 600 million on mobile—with AOL’s digital properties like The Huffington Post, TechCrunch and Engadget. Yahoo, still boasts the highly trafficked Yahoo Sports and Finance verticals. Yahoo also has millennial-reaching Tumblr, which could see a revival under AOL, and subsequently, Verizon. In the sports world, Yahoo could also give Verizon a boost for its go90 mobile platform. Last year Verizon cut a deal with the NBA to offer access to live out-of-market games on go90 through its broadband NBA League Pass offering. (Read More on ADWEEK)

Millennials overwhelmingly spend more video time with TV than any other medium and some of those numbers are growing. 65 million Millennials watched TV in the first quarter this year versus 61 million for the same period in 2002, according to the Video Advertising Bureau. Millennials’ spend 88% of their video time watching on TV versus 4% on smartphones or tablets. Looking at the TV-centric measure Nielsen average audience per minute TV gets 9.1 million millennials, versus 4.9 million for smartphones and 1.1 million for tablets. Analyzing specific digital video platforms, only Facebook, YouTube or Pandora would rank within the top 100 TV programs for millennials. On a time-spent basis, TV outpaces Facebook and YouTube in average audience by more than 3 to 1 and 4 to 1, respectively. The VAB says that although Millennials watch much of their TV binge-watching online, they watch 90% of their TV viewing live. (Read More on MediaPost)

Pandora and digital analytics company Moat have inked a deal to measure viewability within the music-streaming service’s app and website that promises advertisers they will only pay for in-view ads that meet the standards of both the Media Rating Council and individual marketers like GroupM, which sets its own, often stricter requirements for publishers and media companies. Under the MRC’s guidelines for both mobile and desktop viewability, advertisers are charged when 50 percent of a display ad is in view for one second and when 50 percent of a video promo is seen for two seconds. Moat is the only tech company accredited by the MRC to measure in-app ads. The viewability standards apply to all of Pandora’s display and mobile inventory bought using a cost-per-impression model. However, it does not cover the company’s engagement-based sponsored listening ad product that lets advertisers pay for one hour of ad-free listening.(Read More on ADWEEK)

Google AdWords Campaigns – Get Your Digital House In Order Part 2

Check out our latest blog post to explain how to effectively dive into Google AdWords Campaigns. We cover the key points of: